Month: October 2018

Isla Mujeres or Island of the Women earned its name in 1517 when Spanish explorers discovered statues of Ixchel, the Mayan Moon Goddess on this island just 25 minutes by ferry from Cancun. Ixchel’s temple is still here, perched atop a rocky cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea in Garrafon Reef Park – it’s where Mayan…

This spring, just a day or so before she was in Benton Harbor doing her cooking demonstration at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship at Harbor Shores, both Carla Hall—and the world—learned her long-running show, ABC’s Daytime Emmy-winning lifestyle series The Chew was being canceled. “I need a job,” she told the crowded roomful of people….

I never read Anne of Green Gables, the 1908 novel by L. M. Montgomery about an orphan named Anne Shirley who is sent to live on a farm owned by a middle-aged brother and sister on Prince Edward Island (PEI). I’m not sure why since it’s considered a children’s classic, having been translated into 20…

Now with summer officially over, we can hold on to the season by savoring can hold on to the season by savoring the Mackinac Island Cottage Cookbook (Touch Down Books 2017; $29.95) written by two former Southwest Michigan residents, Barbara Toms and her daughter Marcia Dunnigan. For years, their families and friends have been gathering together…

Open House Chicago (OHC), now in its eighth year, is for anyone who has ever walked past a building, questioning what it was like inside, wanted to investigate a neighborhood and understand its history and visit spaces and places in the city never before explored. “OHC is a showcase to understand the basic fabric of…

My first morning in Queretaro, about a 90 minute drive north of Mexico City, I walked along the cobblestone streets in the city’s historic center to the fairy tale castle-like La Casa de la Marquesa, once a private home built in the 1756, now a restaurant and hotel. The menu reflects the vast citrus groves,…

Only six or so when she started helping out in the kitchen, Tiffani Thiessen grew up in a family where dinners were a gathering time to enjoy great cooking and conversations. She upped her game from traditional American fare when she and other stars from “Saved by the Bell” toured in Europe. “It definitely…

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I’ve only been to a few hockey games — always under duress — but that didn’t keep me from reading “The Breakaway: The Inside Story of the Wirtz Family Business and the Chicago Blackhawks,” well into the night. Typically I don’t expect sports books to be page-turners, but Bryan Smith, a two-time winner and six-time […]

Mary Wisniewski was a college student when she first discovered the writings of Chicago writer Nelson Algren. “Many of his books were set in Wicker Park where my family was from which intrigued me,” says Wisniewski, noting that though Algren’s novels are about shady characters, drug addicts, grifters, drifters and those on the margins of […]

Indiana University Press is running a Goodreads giveaway for my new book Lincoln Road Trip (due out this spring) from now until December 19th. If anyone is interested, here is the link:https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/286632-lincoln-road-trip America’s favorite president sure got around. From his time as a child in Kentucky, as a lawyer in Illinois, and all the way […]

It’s a dark world at times and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Berg feels compelled to make it just a little nicer through her novels. In her latest, Night of Miracles (Random House 2018; $26) she takes us back toMason, Missouri, an imaginary town where kindness reigns and there are happy endings. […]

My friend Kimiyo Naka asked if I’d like to interview Bill Kim, a Chicago chef/ restaurateur and James Beard Award nominee who had a new cookbook out on grilling Korean-style who would be doing a demonstration at the Japan Pavilion at this year’s National Restaurant Association. I’ve wanted to […]

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One last turn took us to a dead end and the beginnings of the Hollywood Hills. And here we made another find, Sunset Ranch Hollywood the last dude ranch in the greater L.A. area. It’s about as Old Hollywood as you can get.

Indiana University Press is running a Goodreads giveaway for my new book Lincoln Road Trip (due out this spring) from now until December 19th. If anyone is interested, here is the link:https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/286632-lincoln-road-trip America’s favorite president sure got around. From his time as a child in Kentucky, as a lawyer in Illinois, and all the way […]

I’ve spent a lot of time lately traversing Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio following, so to speak, in Abraham Lincoln’s footsteps . And while it’s not recorded that Lincoln stayed at the Golden Lamb in Lebanon, Ohio, it’s certainly possible ashe traveled throughout the area. The connection seems apt because the GoldenLamb has been […]

The largest marketplace of all things doing with Italian edibles in the U.S., the 63,000-square-foot Eataly in Chicago is a mecca for food lovers, a vast space crowded with a variety of venues including unique specialty restaurants, stalls selling meat, cheese, breads, sweets and fish (though really stall is too plebian a term—these are sparkling […]

I was in New Orleans this fall and stayed at the B&W Courtyards, a charming bed and breakfast on Chartres Street that is a collection of 1854 cottages joined together by cobblestone walkways and courtyards with pretty fountains and within walking distance of the French Quarter. The walking distance was lucky as New Orleans is […]